Advice

Theatres Trust provides expert advice about creating, saving and adapting theatres.

Free advice about your theatre building

We can provide advice about all types of theatres – from old historic theatres to proposed new theatres, from grand auditoria to community spaces.

Our advice is provided free of charge, whether you are a theatre owner, operator, local authority or campaign group trying to save a local theatre.

Our Advisers can help with questions about a wide range of issues including:

• capital projects
• planning applications
• campaigning to save or revive a theatre
• placemaking, cultural and local plans
• fundraising
• architecture/design
• heritage and listings
• maintenance and repairs
• accessibility
• environmental sustainability
• business development
  
  

Advice notes

We’ve put together a series of advice notes that aim to answer some of the most frequent queries that we receive. Please take a look through to see if these answer your enquiry. We’ll be adding more advice sheets over time to increase the resources available here. 

Get in touch with our advisers

If your question isn’t answered by our advice notes, please get in touch with us, either by email or by phone, and our advisers will be happy to provide bespoke support.   

On-site visits

Much of the support will be provided over the phone or email, but in some cases where we need to see the theatre building in person to get a better understanding of any issues and possibility, we will arrange an onsite visit.

More complex cases

We are able to assist most organisations free of charge. However, for more complex issues we may recommend further steps:

Arranging an Advisory Review Panel to look at your capital project

An Advisory Review is a peer review process targeted at theatres developing capital projects. For a small fee, we will convene a group of appropriate experts and lead a discussion to review proposals for building projects at key stages of development, or to address issues encountered as your project develops. After the one-day panel session, you will receive a report setting out the main discussion points and recommendations, to support you to get the best result for your project. 

Read the case study of how we helped Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre through an advisory review.

Signposting to appropriate consultants/organisations

With our extensive network of theatre and arts industry professionals, we may suggest other people who can help you to take your project to the next level where in-depth professional advice is required beyond what our resources allow.  

If you are planning a capital project, or want advice on running, or caring for, a theatre building get in touch to find out how we can help.